Point Of Departure
by Gojirob
Summary: From the time of Pike to the Dominion War, Starfleet keeps turning back to one man when it needs something done. Luckily, that one man is the right man.


As the years and decades pass, Starfleet asks more and more of one man. Luckily, tis' the right man.

----

Point Of Departure

By Gojirob

Every good engineer knows that any given day can be a point of departure. This holds true for the very least, and most certainly for the very best of them all.

July 20th, 2263

Captain Christopher Pike was not a man known for getting close to his crew. A one on one meeting with people outside his senior staff was rare. By that same token, he was not at all hesitant to give credit and praise, where they were due.

"I don't like illusions, Mister Scott. If that isn't already known, I don't mind making it known. Give me reality. Harsh and acidic as it can get, I vastly prefer it to any sort of deception."

"Aye, Captain. Count me for that as well."

"But in our recent first contact with the Ne'Kno, we were under full assault by a series of illusions. Some were mentally based. Some were holographic wizardry. A surprising amount of them were just suggestion and the equivalent of sheets on strings. They were good at their art. Despite the intellect and rationality I pride myself on, I have to say that eventually I gave in. All of us did. Number One called her downfall 'a belief in extreme possibilities' that their games magnified to a hideous degree. Even Mister Spock was tricked by audio signals meant to play havoc with his advanced inner ear. Only one man managed to regain his composure and fire off the single torpedo that struck at the exposed Ne'Kno lead ship."

"Still, sir, twas' a near thing. Very near. I became lost again several times."

Pike nodded. The Ne'Kno had since shifted their excuses to ones involving their being a 'dying and desperate' species. While the captain accepted this as an explanation, he refused to let them use it as an excuse. Possible Federation aid would be tied very, very closely to changes in their aggressive behavior.

"I don't want false modesty, Mister. I want to know how you did it."

Montgomery Scott would never serve under anyone who actually tolerated nonsense. Yet even with that in mind, Captain Pike would always be a man apart. So Scott spoke plainly.

"In the very first days of radio in the 20th Century, there were audio-only plays. At least two of these caused a great panic, one near to London, and one near to New York, though these were each a decade apart. In both cases, only a small handful of the wise saw through the staged news reports, one of a workers' riot, and one of...well..."

Pike silently indicated that he should go on.

"An invasion from the Planet Mars, sir. Based on the famous novel by Mister Wells. So it was that in each instance, those few who saw the misinterpreted broadcasts for what they truly were did so because, frankly, events moved too quickly to be true. In England, the army was on the workers only ten minutes after the lead agitator began speaking. In America, major highways adjacent to New York were in flaming ruins, while the primitive air force was shot down–all within twenty minutes. In those times, it could take an hour simply to mobilize such crafts."

"In every instance, sir, it seemed that the Ne'Kno had us. They were always stronger, faster, and smarter than our very best. Yet our scans of them, real and false, showed that they were jumping to warp–using standard tech, mind ye–inside of the solar system we fought in. I do nae care who you are, or what technology you use. Standard warp inside a solar system, used even once, can be verra bad indeed. Used more than five times rapidly, tis' a disaster like no other. They used theirs well over a hundred times. Their attacks were meant to make us think that perhaps they could do all that wizardry. But their warp-jumps? That's physics. Bloody, basic physics. Those laws will not be broken by standard technology, however enhanced that may be. To my mind, our attackers overused their flash powder, so to speak."

The very thing that marked his preferred distance from the crew made it so that it was easy to tell when Pike was pleased with what he heard.

"So while they hit us with insistent, multi-level illusions, you insistently held on to the piece of reality no one short of a pagan deity could alter. Excellent, Mister Scott. Tell me, do you think that the Ne'Kno will be the last tricksters Starfleet ever encounter?"

"Och, I wouldnae say that, sir. I dinnae think anyone will be quite so adept as they were. But trickery abounds, on Earth and in the heavens around it."

"Well said. Mister Scott, I would like your sort of expertise to be a bellwether of what is real and what is not, and what about reality has perhaps been altered. I'd like you to help Starfleet crews of the future to have the kind of ready information that you used to save us."

Scotty thought about his captain's deceptively simple request.

"Sir, ye are asking me to redesign the very core of the relays between Engineering and the Bridge. A thing like that requires such balance as planets use for their axes. If I add or subtract the wrong sort of information, we could well be worse off, rather than better."

"Mister Scott, I believe you have this in you. A number of your superiors and associates feel the same way. Physicist Sulu had some very good things to say. Now will you step up?"

Montgomery Scott would not make his mark under Christopher Pike. But Captain Pike had just then forever left his mark on the career of Lieutenant Scott.

"Twill be a patience-testing task, sir. But I will take the example of King Robert Bruce, who learned his perseverance by watching a wee spider build his web past every manner of obstacle."

"I knew I could count on you, Mister Scott. But I do have one late condition to add."

"And that is, sir?"

Scott would have people disbelieving that the next moment ever occurred.

"No spiders. I really hate spiders."

For Captain Christopher Pike had made a joke.

---

July 20th 2271

"They took her away from me, Scotty."

Before Scotty could decide to weigh in on this very loaded statement, James Kirk continued.

"But if they're going to stick and keep me behind a desk, I can at least act on a stylus-pusher's best prerogative."

The view in the space dock viewport was heartening one year before, and in two years more, it would be breath-taking. Yet for then and there, the USS Enterprise was being taken apart, so that it could be put back together, in theory better than ever. But like a great wooden ship shorn of mast and sail, her nacelles were gone, and the saucer section rested separately from the main body of the ship, each held fast by restraints of matter and energy. The look of it all was equal parts autopsy and that of a child's stuffed toy, anxiously waiting to be re-seamed on the next morrow.

"And what might that prerogative be, Admiral?"

Kirk smiled a bit, yet to Scott this seemed a bit furtive. The smile seemed more that of a man who'd found a way to make a captor regret holding his charge, than a true mark of happiness.

"The oldest one of all, Scotty. If it ain't broke, get a team on it immediately. Up until now, you've been merely the lead of a chorus of voices in overseeing this refit. As of right now, you're singing solo. The title we'll work out. But its effective meaning will be, simply put, project dictator."

"Begging the Admiral's pardon, but there's already an effective refit plan in place, though it does not go so far as it could, to my mind."

Kirk gestured broadly at Enterprise's sundered form. This was the first time Scott saw the longing in his former commander's being manifest itself.

"I don't want a refit. I want a re-imagining. I don't want to rearrange the chairs, the decks, or for that matter, the deck chairs. I want you to rearrange its face, and the bones, muscles and tissue in that face. Let's really give the Constitution-Class...some class."

"Sir, is this the will of Admiral Nogura as well?"

Admiral Kirk spoke words that Scott supposed Kirk did not intend to be chilling.

"It will be. Go for it, Scotty. Do all the things you've ever imagined. You were already largely overseeing this project. Now, you *are* the project."

"Aye, sir. And thank ye. Do ye suppose we could talk initial designs over a spot of lunch?"

The verve was gone. The man who treated a two-level promotion like a prison sentence was back.

"Lunch for me is back in Iowa. I have a girlfriend who may be duplicitous on some matters, one nephew who may not like her very much, one who may have a crush on her, one who certainly does, and a mother who definitely doesn't like her. I suppose I should be happy I have the one, be happy the boys are dealing as well as they are after Deneva, and that Mom is as strong and healthy as ever. But very little seems to make me happy nowadays, Mister Scott."

The great man left and Scotty's mind turned from thoughts of midday meals to a design that might give Kirk some small happiness. It would have to be comprehensive, that he knew.

"First thing–we'll get rid of those silly turbolift sticks. Och, what were they thinking? And that telescoping sensor by Sulu's panel? Can't remember the last time it didn't seize up, one way or the other..."

Montgomery Scott set about the gargantuan task of amending the Constitution-Class while keeping what worked. As he worked to set a standard, so did he also uphold one.

--

July 20th, 2284

Scotty was, to say the least, surprised to see who was calling him.

"Admiral Bennett, sir?"

"Captain Scott, there are some people who want your head on a platter for disabling Excelsior, some months back."

That surprised Scotty not at all. Old enemies were whispering about, and former friends were taking stances against him that in some cases, involved moral ground they simply didn't have, to Scott's mind. He had declared, also unsurprisingly, how little use he had for one and all.

"I have to imagine that there are such folk as that, sir."

The man that, Scotty had noted, never minded being called 'Bob' by Kirk on-screen, showed by his facial expression that he was not among the ones spoken of.

"A lot of people, in places high and low, had a lot of time, effort and credibility invested in Excelsior being the breakout cruiser of this decade. When you in effect pulled down its pants and showed the galaxy the padded muscle this was hiding, you walked over a lot of fragile egos, Captain."

Scotty felt safe talking with this man, whose rank was well-known to be the result of elbow grease and dirt under his nails. But in case he was being singled out for all that had gone on in their efforts to rescue Spock, he moved to find out sooner rather than later.

"With all respect, sir. I regret only that my actions were so very necessary. If that is to be my epitaph, then tis' an acceptable one."

"Captain, surely you're aware that all charges in that affair are very much a settled matter."

"That I am, Admiral. But surely, sir, ye are equally aware that settled matters can be made unsettled through the efforts of those willing to kick up dust."

In a very dark part of the engineer's heart, the names on a very short, but very nasty list of those dust-kickers came up, and these included people he once respected. No longer.

"Stand down, Captain. Because I'm not at all interested in seeing you punished on behalf of those people. I am, however interested, in seeing Excelsior redeemed. You've taken the big toy apart. I'd like you to help put it back together."

"I'll ask the Admiral to forgive my earlier impertinence. I'm afraid that all this has left me both wary and weary of discussions, even legitimate ones. Yet, Admiral. Sure ye must ken that I have no desire to leave the Enterprise, even for so great an undertaking. My differences with those who cobbled together Excelsior are well-known and documented. Ye do not need me on this, sir."

Bennett shook his head.

"I would never be so foolish as to try to break up the 2027 London Kings, Captain. But as another saying goes, some of the people involved in the Excelsior project need to have the arthropods removed from that well-known place where the sun don't shine. So from now on, when their somewhat more innovative subordinates need advice, I have ordered them to correspond with you. Maybe if they know they're being overridden with sanction, it will wake some of these prima donnas up and see them finally get with the damned program. Put aside all personal issues, and just respond to the problems sent your way. Do we have a deal?"

Scotty nodded.

"Aye, that we do, Admiral. Perhaps it will be that Excelsior will be the breakout class of the next decade. But let my ego show when I say that no Excelsior-class will ever replace Enterprise."

"A good class of ship is like a good officer, Captain. No one realizes their full promise the first time up. Thank You. Bennett out."

Later that day, Scotty was asked if he was involved in anything of note.

"Och, No. An old friend just asked my help in puttin' together some sorry old heap. Blasted thing is barely spaceworthy, ye ask me."

One day, a tragic incident with an unready Excelsior-class bearing the name of his beloved ship and its even less ready captain would leave an indelible mark on Montgomery Scott and all those he held dear. Yet his guiding correspondence with those who rapidly rose to remake the Excelsior Class would make the ships a standout in peace then unimaginable and wars yet to be fought. One of those wars, he would live to see in a time not quite his own.

He would see that war with a ruthless, fear-driven foe, and he would see its aftermath.

--

July 20th, 2376

"If the lads hadn't asked for this as a personal favor, so I swear..."

The 'lads' in question had been no less than Commander Geordi LaForge and retired Admiral Peter Kirk.

"She'll see you now, Captain."

The favor had been arranging, through non-official channels, a meeting between Scotty and the most powerful woman in Starfleet, arguably one of the most powerful in the entire Federation. She was also, to hear Demora Sulu tell the story, one of the most controversial in the history of either. This woman had been called many things in the places Scott had traveled to since his recovery by Picard's Enterprise-D.

"Aye, lass. I pray I just dinnae see red too soon."

Very few of them had been favorable. Maybe only a relatively small percentage of officers had ever defected to the now-vanished Maquis, but it was clear from the comments Scotty heard that the same issues that had driven those few to openly rebel and renounce their oath of service had been on the minds of a great many.

"And what of your oath, Montgomery? Do ye speak up for those fearful of court-martial, or show respect to that person utmost in Starfleet? This is not my time. Is it even my place to speak?"

He hadn't meant to talk out loud as he walked the corridor, and was thankful he hadn't done so too loudly. He could speak, he knew. The worst that could happen was the formal loss of his rank and use of the shuttlecraft Goddard, but he could easily survive without either.

"Captain Scott? I'll be just a moment. The blasted thing won't close. Bad relays."

Admiral Alynna Nechayev seemed to be struggling with her own right hand. Finally, it opened and closed, and looked to be under her control. Scott quickly realized the nature of her struggle. He forced himself to remember how many officers and people faced the same struggle and then some in part because of her policies.

"Ma'am? If I may, when did it happen?"

Picard had spoken some of the most pointed, if politely phrased, words on the subject of this woman. Some of those had been plainly true. She could be quite charming, especially during an initial meeting.

"The Breen Attack. The shapeshifters had operatives that told them of where my office was moved to at the beginning of every day. Bob Jellico dragged me out of the wreckage in time–well, mostly. Thank God for our mutual friend, Doctor Kirk. He got all of his cadets to safety in time, and then went back for more. Tell me, Captain. Would the Doctor's Uncle and I have gotten along, in your opinion?"

She was very good at this, of that Scotty had no doubt.

"I'd have to say, Admiral–there might have been some conflict between the two of ye. Captain Kirk had a personal style, as does the Admiral. Both very distinctive and such does nae always jibe well."

*Och, Jim*, he thought. *Ye would nae have bedded this one.*

"Or maybe that conflict is exactly what I would have needed. I'm told I tend to shut people down, Captain. That I've become too much the ruler, and not enough the servant. I used to dismiss such talk. Two conflicts with rapacious powers bent on wiping us all away have forced me to listen a bit better. Captain Scott–I'd like to listen now. To you. Then after you've vented, I will ask a favor."

Scotty quickly decided that these words sounded an awful lot like permission to speak freely and with all candor, but still he hesitated. Not out of fear, but out of the knowledge that this sort of opportunity was not apt to pass his way again.

"In all my days, and I have a few of those, I have nae ever seen the morale of this Fleet in such a state. I wouldnae lay all this at your doorstep, Admiral. Yet I have heard things. Admirals aplenty, all incapable of any words save 'Ye Have Your Orders'. Each one born fully-sprouted with an agenda that never keeps to such inconvenient things like Federation law and informing those who risk their lives carrying out half-baked orders. And if all that were somehow not enough, along comes a treaty replete with flaws, pushed on by edict and ego. It tells intelligent, engaged officers that they must not merely obey it, but like it, when the policies never once had their hearts. Ye seemed to expect officers used to being part of the process to snap to like fascist automatons. Worse, ye expected this of colonists who never took an oath of service. Even worse than this was the expectation that a duplicitous former foe would become a tribe of angels, simply by virtue of being signatories to a hard-fought treaty. Should any have been surprised by the rising of the Maquis, when the Cardassians, keepers of a corrupt culture, were violating the letter and spirit of the treaty on one hand, while issuing endless demands and accusations for our compliance?"

Whatever the words were doing to Nechayev, they were almost physically painful for Scotty. Yet he could not stop. He had no desire to be a dinosaur, braying out weak growls about the good old days he knew weren't always all that good. Yet he had been given leave to speak, and now found he needed to use it.

"Och, then suddenly, to hear it told, twas' the Maquis who were the great and grave threat to all that was. Yet instead of figuring out why they would do such things as they did, Starfleet hunted fruitlessly through the Badlands, bound by proper rules of good conduct-as we should be. The Maquis no longer knew most rules, and so danced around us, enhancing their reputation at our expense. Too many lines had been drawn by then, and the rebels grew cocky. Cardassia at last had something like its Gorkon, but all that was choked off. And so the Dominion stepped in, and we are only just now past them. And it may all be traced back to orders that came largely without explanation, even that wee bit a superior owes to a competent subordinate. Ye and yours thundered from above, Admiral, and worried less about the whole of your charge than whether the whole of your will was obeyed. No, ye are not to blame for this war. But there was so much ye could have done to make it less than a disaster. So many lives could have been saved, but obedience choked off innovation----"

Scott was shocked to find he was fighting back tears.

"–so damn ye all for believing those pips confer divinity. For they do not. Ye are no more made gods than were Mitchell, Evans, Tracey and all the sorry rest, through to that Trelane-wannabe that harasses Jean-Luc Picard on occasion. Ye have forgotten that a leader leads through respect, not because some regulation demands it!"

Scotty was stunned with himself on several levels. Not only had he spoken to his technical utmost superior in such a way, but to a woman. The century he lived in aside, there would always be that part of him.

"Admiral–I know that I had your direction to speak candidly. But I didnae mean to go quite so far as I did. If you wish to have my commission, I will..."

But Alynna Nechayev wasn't fuming, or calling security. She was smiling, and even starting to laugh.

"Doctor Kirk called it right. He told me that if you really want to hear your unvarnished sins spoken of plainly and with no spin whatsoever, call on Montgomery Scott. He'll fire on you with all banks, and at maximum power."

Kirk's nephew, briefly an arrogant heir aboard his uncle's command till straightened out by a certain engineer, would have surely known this. When Scotty still looked lost, Nechayev kept on.

"I've been called plenty of names, Captain. But the one I've never even allowed might be true is that of a fool. One would have to be a fool, to not see that events over the last decade at times wholly overwhelmed us, and showed us our weaknesses. If those weaknesses only included ship design, we'd make the next Defiant. If tactics, then we'd make new battle plans. But the Dominion, like the Borg before them, got us because we were us. We allowed that era of relative peace after the first Cardassian conflict to make us believe it could always be the Golden Age, when really such things are cyclical."

Scotty tried a peace offering, still thinking such was necessary.

"Ye are not a fool, Admiral–except in asking this tired old man to list wrongs ye seem to ken quite well, if I may say so."

"We were clobbered, Mister Scott. We were clobbered because we had never before faced foes willing to lose all but their utmost top leadership in battle. We were clobbered because 'mad Admiral' syndrome undermined confidence in our leadership. We were clobbered because we focused on the Maquis rather than what drove them. But in the end, we were clobbered because we are a democracy, and do not wish to see our worlds and colonies turned into armed camps. Despite all the losses, we still don't. Yet if we move there incrementally, driven by attacks from the next galactic power from nowhere, isn't it worse for losing it all bit by bit?"

Captain Scott moved to discern her reason for summoning him in a simple, perhaps too informal way. Yet he felt safe in this. This woman was not the dismissive ogre he had been told of, or perhaps that woman had been removed from Nechayev when her hand was taken as well.

"Lass–why am I here?"

"Captain, at one time I thought that the DMZ Treaty would be my legacy. I paid for my lack of vision in that, as did so many. What is my fault is. What isn't my fault still occurred on my watch, or at least that's when the bills came due. So I'm moving fast to cancel the bad debts. With the exception of truly extraordinary individuals with great achievements, the Admiralty's getting a trim. No more advancement to that rank, until the 'fiefdom' mentality that led to such incidents as Pegasus, Leyton's coup attempt, Satie's unchecked witch hunt, and other such nonsense is done with. My eyes are open now, as are my ears. But that only begins to address the problems, and only on Starfleet's end. I am proposing that all the worlds and colonies of the Federation receive a whole-cloth defensive and infrastructure upgrade, so that they are no longer the first targets of opportunity. We on Earth have learned. The attacks can come anywhere, and so the paradise must grow everywhere. But I want this to be in concert with the residents of those worlds, so that this is not just another edict. The Federation Council has given me their blessing on this."

Scotty shook his head.

"Tis far too ambitious, La–Ma'am. To truly pull off an integrated overhaul of the Federation itself while truly bringing the locals along would require—well, it would require–"

"A miracle worker, Captain Scott?"

The older man's jaw dropped.

"Ye are serious?"

"Very serious, Captain. Will you do it?"

"Twould take a lifetime."

"You're on your second. And current medical advances can promise you at least five more fully active decades."

"But why me? There are names that leap to mind before my own. LaForge, O'Brien, Brahms...och, the list of worthies born in this time boggles the mind."

"We talked to all those people. Every last one you can think of, and even a few mutant oddballs we employ, mainly to keep them out of trouble. Theirs was a chorus that said one name: Captain Montgomery Scott."

"I have responsibilities. I'm taking care of my ancestral home in Scotland."

"Consider that your Terran headquarters. Saavik said you'd likely never accept an office here, anyway."

Scotty sat stunned for two minutes, before speaking.

"I'll make all of ye proud. We'll put that rinky-dink Dyson Sphere to shame, all in short order. Tis a six-day job, lassie. But I'll have it for ye in three."

He thought back to a man now lost to them all.

"I wish Jimmy were here to see this."

"I've heard good things about 'Jimmy', too. All my life. But now is the time for the man whose career he helped to shape. Now is the time for Montgomery Scott to shine."

"Aye. That it is. But first things first, Admiral. Let's have a peek at the schematics of that hand of yours. We'll have those kinks done with before dinner this evening."

A synthetic life-form, an acquaintance of Captain Scott's, once correctly observed that a single day contains as many meanings as there were sentient beings. July 20th could see a great leader born, or see the loss of a beloved friend to a draining illness. But for Captain Montgomery Scott, late of the USS Enterprises NCC-1701 and 1701-A, it was simply another point of departure, this time as the war-weary Federation turned to its miracle worker for reconstruction and rebirth.

-----

Dedicated to James Doohan. Just Because.


End file.
